Week #785
This week we spent a bunch of time between tasks working on some of our iOS apps. For all the Camera App, we did a big refactor to share more code between them. That will make finding and fixing bugs and adding features faster. We also add GeoTagging of the photos and better metadata when saving.
We also refactoring Triagemail to handle multiple IMAP accounts and Dashbones to bring it up from Swift to SwiftUI to make it easier to maintain and update.
As a test, we also scratched our own itch and created an offline music player. We have several mp3s and other audio clips that are not on streaming services. We still wanted a way to play some of this music since it’s mostly been lost these last few years to streaming.
With some spare time, we also make an ugly prototype app for a game idea we’ve had kicking around for a long, long time. Much like the original Lemonade game for the Apple IIc, the goal is to both plan, balance and iterate on a small business. The prototype is great because it’s horrible! Somethings are too fast, somethings too small, others don’t make sense and the economy doesn’t balance, but now we can fix it all and build a plan rather than keep things idea locked-up.
On Thursday we published Backups 3.0, a look at the state of our ever evolving backup regime.
Thursday was the Gulleggið presentations. We went to have a look at the top 10 entries for new start-up ideas. It was fun and interesting. Afterwards we chatted with some teams about similar things we’ve worked on and if we could help in anyway. Slowly, we’re getting back into the local community and digging our well before we’re thirsty.
With February ending and March starting we’re deep in survey season. We wrapped-up one, started another and will start a 3rd next week. The core application is in great shape, we’re mostly dealing with importing of lists, various question issues, etc.
March also means that we need to do all the payroll, bills, VAT statements and annual taxes. We’re pretty well on top of all these tasks, but they still need to get done soon.
Week #786
This week we started yet even more surveys and wrapped-up another. Each is run on it’s own server, so we’re not concerned about the backend technology part, it is more the juggling of who gets contacted when and how. Before a survey starts we usually create some sort of “pester schedule” which outlines all the actions we take and on what days. For instance, Monday we send out first email, then Wednesday SMS follow-ups, etc. That helps us keep track of everything across various surveys in different states of progress.
This week we sent a lot of emails, SMSs and Robocalls!
Each year we release a big list of headlines we collected as part of the (Today I learnt) TIL project. We continue to work on it little by little. So far, we’ve put all the headlines into a database and tagged (most) all the entries. There is some next level work we’d like to get around to smoothing out and we’re almost there!
We got back in to Xcode this week and cleaned-up more apps. We submitted Dashbones and Triagemail for App Review and they are now live on the App Store. Our camera app refactoring is going to take a little bit longer since we got sucked into more prototyping ideas.
On Friday, we had a few meetings to sync about projects. With all these other deadlines, prototypes and distractions, our focus has fallen short on a few others. Luckily, things are getting back to a normal level of chaos so we can regroup on a few older projects that need some attention again.